As the dominant landlord in Calgary with the most downtown office space in Houston and Australia, few office providers have as much experience in energy sector markets as Brookfield Property Group. Last Thursday, at Georgetown Luminaries, Brookfield Property Group chairman Ric Clark was asked about the company's position in Houston.

"Our strategy is always to make hay when the market is booming, lease the space up on a long-term basis, finance it on a long-term basis, bring in financial partners and redeploy the money," Clark said. "But in the case of Houston, although the office market is pretty soft right now, every energy tenant really understands the leverage that they have so the deals are brutal."

While the office landscape looks rough, Clark was more optimistic about residential.

"There's a lot of inflow to Houston and to other sectors, we think the residential market, in the long term, will be a good area to invest. We have the density to add 2,000 apartments to our project in Houston. It's something we're spending a lot of time planning and thinking about."